


Crumbs

by SwirlsOfBlueJay



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 18:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20295841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwirlsOfBlueJay/pseuds/SwirlsOfBlueJay
Summary: She comes back to him some time later, grinning smugly, “I got you a present.”Jake rolls his eyes and smiles. She thrusts out two folders to him. “They’re so you can keep your underwear organised.”He knows she’s mocking him, and so responds with his own hearty grin and says, “You put commas on these labels, who does that? You’re such a dork.”





	Crumbs

2012

“What are you doing?” Amy asks.

Jake looks up, her gaze is flicking between the pile of underwear on the floor beside him and the pair in his hand that he was just sniffing. Her expression is ninety two percent revolted and eight percent hoping this is somehow case-related and she can taunt him about it.

“I’m trying to find a clean pair.”

Amy walks away in disgust.

Jake shrugs and goes back to sniffing. As far as he’s concerned, he’s trying to find clean underwear to wear, it’s a ‘pursuit of cleanliness’ thing as Amy would say, so she has no right to judge him.

* 

She comes back to him some time later, grinning smugly, “I got you a present.”

Jake rolls his eyes and smiles. She thrusts out two folders to him. “They’re so you can keep your underwear organised.”

He knows she’s mocking him, and so responds with his own hearty grin and says, “Thank you Santiago, this is so thoughtful.”

She rolls her eyes at him.

“You put commas on these labels, who does that? You’re such a dork.”

2013

When Jake finds a mouse in his desk, at first he’s overjoyed, because it’s small and cute, and hey! New pet! Awesome!

And then he finds the mouse running along Santiago’s desk and he freaks out. Luckily she’s not currently here. He scoops it up, and places it back in his drawer. And then rifles through hers looking for disinfectant. He’s somehow sure she’ll know, that her desk was at some point unclean, like a superpower (or because Jake’s rubbish at cleaning, but it’s not like the mouse pooped or anything). He scrubs harder.

And he just knows that the mouse is going to end up on her desk again, it’s inevitable.

Okay so he may be overreacting slightly.

It’s just that as much as he enjoys teasing and needling and pranking Amy, he hates it when she’s genuinely mad at him; it makes his tummy hurt.

And this is definitely going to be one of those ‘properly mad at him’ things. They both have similar issues with their desks, about things being in their place and not moved. This could’ve easily resulted in a series of epic pranks as they tried to out-do each other. But they somehow realised it would probably result in one of them murdering the other. Their desks are their truce-point. She doesn’t wipe the crumbs off of his and he doesn’t let his mess spill over onto hers.

Unfortunately it’s hard to get mice to respect desk boundaries. And it starts creeping to Amy’s desk again. Jake takes it to the walls, so it can make friends with the rats, he says goodbye and wishes it good luck.

It’s back in his desk the next day.

*

That’s when he realises he’s going to have to clean his desk. Ugh. Stupid Amy and her stupid cleanness.

He thinks he’s doing relatively well. Actually cleaning it even he can see it’s pretty gross. Even as he’s close to done it doesn’t look great. It looks a lot better than it did though and he gives himself props for that.

He’s doing some final scrubbing, he’s about to give up and accept his desk is going to be a mess forever (though it does look much nicer now and he’s proud) when Amy asks,

“What are you doing?”

“There’s a mouse that keeps coming back, so I’m trying to clean. My desk looks so amazing!”

Amy sighs. “This isn’t clean Jake. Well done though, it does look better than usual. Let me help.”

“I don’t need help.”

Amy stares at him.

“Okay, I’m a mess, please help me.”

Amy smiles.

Jake says, “I’m guessing you want to get rid of the mouse first.”

“No, I think you had the right idea on doing that after you’ve cleared the stuff out. Then it won’t come back. And you can say a proper goodbye. I’m sure you’ve become attached, the two of you having so much in common.”

Jake nods. “Yeah, because he’s awesome! He deserves a good send off.”

*

They’ve been cleaning for what feels like forever when his stomach starts rumbling.

“Ugh, how can you be hungry, I feel like I’m going to hurl from the smell,” Amy says, but after looking at her watch, and the now almost empty precinct, she pulls her gloves off, “Okay, it’s late, let’s get some take out and then carry on.”

“I would say it’s my treat for your help, but I don’t have any money.”

“That’s okay, you can owe me one.”

“Shouldn’t we eat in the break room so we don’t make more mess?”

“Jake you don’t stop using your space, you just need to clean up afterwards. If you do it every time you won’t get this problem again.”

“Every time?!”

“Yes Jake. And that way you can have a good clean desk when we get the new captain.”

“That’s months away. I mean I’ll try, in honour of our hard work. But let’s be real: my desk is going to be a complete dumpster again by then.”

“Probably.”

“By the way, thanks for helping me.”

“You’re welcome. How could I turn you away when you clearly need me so badly?”

Maybe it’s something in the night air, but instead of responding with another quip he says, oddly sincere, “I really do.”

Amy smiles silently. It makes him strangely happy.

*

“What shall we do with the mouse?”

Jake grins. “I was putting him by the wall.”

“You’re leaving him in the building!?”

“Yeah, but I guess I should take him to the woods or something.”

“Jake, this mouse has lived inside its whole life; it will die in the woods.”

“Oh.”

She picks it up.

“He’s cute. We should call him Algernon,” she says and laughs. He laughs with her, they both know he doesn’t get the joke- it doesn’t matter.

2015

She’s thinking, staring at the crumbs on Jake’s desk and has the sudden urge to wipe them off.

(It’s a line they don’t cross, a clear-marked boundary, and she for once wants to mess up the lines, mess up the boundaries. Their relationship is in such a weird place, an almost-could’ve-been-but-isn’t place and she wants something to note that, even if it’s just an absence of crumbs. It’s dumb).

And she does so.

* 

She’s pleased afterwards. It’s not that the crumbs bother her anymore, she’s long become used to them. She even has a sort of fondness for the Jake-clutter on the desk joined with hers. She wonders if he’ll notice (she knows he will) and wonders whether he’ll figure her out. He’s so good at figuring her out. But she doesn’t know if he even wants to be with her anymore.

2019

As everyone clears out their desks, Amy’s gaze drifts over to her husband’s messy drawers.

She can’t help but think back through the years, their times spent together at these desks; the messes they made and the messes they cleaned up, both figurative and literal, this was the home they made for the two of them together, before they even realised that together was an option.

They really were ridiculous back then. She can’t imagine why they waited so long.

Amy wonders whether Jake really did take her cleaning the crumbs off his desk as a sign, it seems so dumb now, looking back, though he did mention wanting to ask her out within that same conversation. Or maybe he was just too distracted about wanting to ask her out to realise. She’ll have to ask him. Either way, it worked out in the end.

She knows Jake’s desk is still worse than anyone’s (with the exception of Hitchcock and Scully). But that’s a fight for later. Besides, at least he doesn’t leave crumbs on it anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr as chipmunksallshipklefan


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